Page:Lord Dunsany - The Sword of Welleran.djvu/280

ON THE DRY LAND at your noble dreams and hindered all your deeds. See now, you have found me out, and now you will send me away, and here you will live at ease, and, undisturbed, have noble dreams of the immortal gods.

"See now, here is dawn and safety, and there is darkness and peril."

Still the old man wept softly.

Then Love said: "Is it thus with you?" and his voice was grave now and quiet. "Are you so troubled? Old friend of so many years, there is grief in my heart for you. Old friend of perilous ventures, I must leave you now. But I will send my brother soon to you—my little brother Death. And he will come up out of the marshes to you, and will not forsake you, but will be true to you as I have not been true."

And dawn grew brighter over the immortal gods, and the old man smiled through his tears, which glistened wondrously in the 242